


In Freefall

by banbanabas



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: (im also crying but that's okay), Alphynecentric, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Not Canon Compliant, Suicidal Thoughts, gee i sure do love making these characters feel pain, heavy trigger warning for suicide, like seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-14 09:18:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5738101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/banbanabas/pseuds/banbanabas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cursing, she nearly flew over the two bridges, passed the sentry box and the water cooler, and skidded to a stop at the lab door. She slammed her knuckles into it hard, shouting, “Alphys! Alphys! Are you here?” </p>
<p>Silence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Freefall

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this prompt:
> 
> "Had this idea for a prompt but I could never write it so maybe you could do it better o: odds are we know how alphys would handle undynes death so my idea for a prompt would be how UNDYNE. Would take alphys death (maybe she even found the body ;) )"
> 
> This fic was beta-read by the lovely Adena, aka flowerats . tumblr . com
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy heartache as much as I do...
> 
> ALSO: if you want MORE heartache, anzuo . tumblr. com made some awesome, sob-inducing art based on this fic:  
> http://anzu0 . tumblr . com/post/137953723063/please-read-fishlizardweeb-s-latest-alphyne-fic  
> THANKS FOR RUINING ME!!!!!

She hardly noticed it at first. Her hand did little more than twitch when she heard the buzzing on her nightstand. At the second noise, she groaned and angrily slapped around the general area of her phone. It couldn’t be time to wake up already, could it? She slammed her palm down on the glaringly bright screen, hoping she might hit “snooze.”

But her phone kept vibrating.

Frustrated, Undyne dragged her phone close enough to see the display, which showed several texts from Alphys. _It’s the middle of the night... This better be important..._

She opened the messages, the words swimming before her eye. She sat up, blinked, and peered blearily at the screen again.

Within seconds, she was fully awake and sprinting out the door.

///

_“Undyne..._

_“i can’t do this anymore.”_

“Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my _God_ ,” Undyne said between gasps, her legs automatically taking her to Hotland. She tapped Alphys’s speed dial number, but it went to voicemail before she even lifted the phone to her face. “No, Alphys, _no, please..._ ”

_“i keep hurting people. and lying to people._

_“and i’ve been lying to you, too.”_

She checked the texts again only to see that Alphys hadn’t responded to Undyne’s fifty-odd replies. Cursing, she nearly flew over the two bridges, passed the sentry box and the water cooler, and skidded to a stop at the lab door. She slammed her knuckles into it _hard,_ shouting, “Alphys! _Alphys!_ Are you here?”

Silence.

_“i’m not a good person, do you know that? i’ve ruined lives, and i haven’t answered for doing lots of terrible things. and i won’t, ever. because i’m weak and bad and awful and it doesn’t matter if i’m sorry for being bad because i keep doing bad things anyway._

_“i’m... i’m just”_

Undyne pounded on the door again. When nothing happened, she jammed the “Open” button anyway. The door stayed shut—locked. Undyne snarled. “Answer me right now, I fucking swear! If you’re not in there! _If you’re not in there!_ ”

But nobody came.

Undyne covered her mouth with both hands, suddenly feeling very, very small. “If you’re not—” Her voice cracked.

_“i don’t deserve to live anymore”_

“If you’re not in there... What the hell am I going to do?”

_“and i’m sorry i’m even sending you this bc youve been so nice to me and all i ever gave you was lies”_

Undyne looked around frantically. Alphys could be anywhere. She could be in the Core or over a lava pit or on top of Mettaton’s fucking hotel... But, no, she wouldn’t want to make a scene. Alphys avoided people when she could. There was no way she’d turn this into a public affair. Undyne hated to think it, but whatever way Alphys was going to do this, it would be... Quietly. She was too introverted, too self-deprecating... _Self-deprecating..._

Undyne slapped herself on the forehead. “Undyne, you idiot.”

_“imju ust making it worse and worse and i never meant to hurt you i care about you so much_

_“you and mettaton and asgore but i cant stop being bad and hurting you and im so sorry undyne im so so sorry for doing any of this to you but i cant stay here anymore i have to go i have to make this sotp i have to stop hurting people please undesrstand_

_“im sorry”_

She knew exactly where she was.

_“i love you”_

She squinted through the heat.

_“goodbye”_

She ran back to Waterfall.

///

_“Alphys!”_ she called. Her voice echoed distantly in the low-hanging caverns of the dump, but she still heard no answer. Dread swelled in her chest as she slogged through pool after pool of filthy, stagnant water, heart racing and hands shaking. “Alphys, you better be here! Hey! You hear me?”

Quaking in her waterlogged boots, Undyne trudged past the garbage piles that she knew bordered the maw of the abyss. She had to be there. Undyne would find her standing by the pit and gather her up in her arms and tell her no, she didn’t have to do this, she was going to be okay! She could make it. Undyne wouldn’t let her go like this... Alphys deserved so much better than...

Undyne rounded the corner and saw nothing but trash and water and deep, empty darkness.

She stood there, stunned. This wasn’t the right place. She had gone somewhere else, then, but where? Her mind raced to find an answer, but all she could think of was that _contemplative_ look she’d seen on Alphys’s face the first time they’d met.

And then she heard a noise to her left. She whirled, fins lifting hopefully as she lunged, but all she found was... An echo flower, drooping from one of the shorter garbage piles. From it she heard someone crying, faintly, and then a whisper: “I-I-I’m, I-I’m s-s-s-so s-sorry, I c-c-can’t... I’m s-sorry...”

Oh, God. Oh, God, _it was her_.

She had been here.

_But where was she now?_

“No.” She stepped back. “No!” She shook her head, stepped back again, turned to face the abyss. “I don’t believe it! I can’t... There’s no way you... Alphys! _Alphys!_ ”

Her voice shuddered across the void, bouncing back to her own ears again and again. “You didn’t! You didn’t...!” Against her judgment, she inched closer to the drop-off. “You...”

She peered into the inky depths, inhaling unexpectedly sharply. Jagged rocks jutted from the cliff’s edges. She couldn’t help but picture Alphys here, Alphys _falling_ —

She hiccupped, tears welling in her eyes. “I can’t... How could you just... Fucking... Give up! This isn’t... You can’t just leave me here!” she shouted, her voice cracking. Undyne wiped at her tears furiously. “How can you just go and… And _die_? You said you didn’t want to hurt people anymore!” She slammed both fists against the rocky outcropping. “ _You’re hurting me right now! How is this! Any better!_ ”

Roaring in anguish, she plunged her hands into the dirty water. She grabbed onto something long and broken, held on tight, and heaved it over the edge, watching the wet, splintered mess spiral in freefall until it disappeared below. “How am I supposed to just! Let you die! _Like this!_ ” she yelled. At each pause, she dug up and launched another mass of debris. _“_ I’m supposed to be your friend, I... I’m supposed to protect you!” A nearby garbage pile shifted, and she fell into the water to dodge the wave of trash now tumbling toward the pit, still shouting, “And be there for you! But I guess I didn’t fucking do that because _you killed yourself_ , and _I fucking let you!_ ”

Her ear-splitting screech bounced around the cavern. The echo flowers picked up on it, even, creating a chorus of _“and I fucking let you!”_ around Undyne, and she felt her rage receding. Still on her hands and knees in the water, Undyne’s scowl became a pained frown as tears finally rolled down her face.

“You said ‘I love you,’ you know that?” she whispered, shaking her head slowly. “You told me you loved me. And I didn’t even get to say it back.” She huffed a laugh, sniffled, and then raised her voice: “Well, you know what, Alphys? I... I love you, too! ... I l-loved you, too...”

She curled in on herself, her whole body lurching forward as strained noises forced their way past her lips. She sank deeper into the water. Water squelched in her boots and soaked into her pajama shorts, but she barely noticed. “I’m sorry, Alphys…,” she muttered, repeating it over and over like an answer to the echo flowers’ furious shouts.

She stayed like that for maybe minutes, maybe hours. She wasn’t sure. When the tears stopped flowing, she sat on her haunches for a long while and just stared into the darkness. She didn’t know what to do now.

“I’m… So sorry… Alphys…,” she whispered again, mostly to herself. A few of the echo flowers responded.

But behind her, the droopy flower from before wasn’t shouting anymore. It instead offered a barely audible trail of words, each one quieter than the last: “I’m s-s-sorry, t-too, U-Undyne…”

She shuddered a breath and shook her head. God, that almost sounded like… Like Alphys was… Responding to her, instead of just about to…

But… Why would she have said she was sorry, “too”?

Undyne gasped. “Are you still here?”

She stood suddenly, water splashing everywhere as she crashed about the garbage pile. Her frown twisted into a snarl. “This better not be wishful thinking. These fucking flowers—”

And she saw her.

Huddled with her arms wrapped around herself, head bowed, legs pulled into her lab coat where she sat in a garbage-encircled alcove facing the abyss. Undyne couldn’t believe her eyes.

Alphys trembled as she whispered again, “I-I-I’m s-sorry, U-Undyne.”

Undyne fell to her knees. “Oh, my God, _Alphys!_ ” She scrambled over miscellaneous debris until she was close enough to throw her arms around her friend. When Alphys stiffened, Undyne pulled back carefully, placing her hands on Alphys’s shoulders and holding them there. She couldn’t believe she was still here, she… “I thought I lost you, oh, my God, I’m so sorry, Alphys, are you okay? Alphys? Please, say something…”

Alphys kept her head ducked. “You sh-shouldn’t even want to talk to m-me…”

“What? You’re _alive_ , I thought you were… How could I not want to talk to you?”

The smaller monster sniffled, glancing up warily. “Wh-wh-why a-aren’t you m-mad at me? F-for making you come here and… I didn’t even…?”

“You think I actually _want_ you to be… To be gone? Alphys.” Undyne placed a hand on her cheek, wiping the tearstains from her golden scales. “I would never, ever, _ever_ want you gone. I care about you so damn much, Alphys, okay? Do you hear me? _You matter to me_. So much.”

Alphys’s whole body shook. Without warning, she fell forward and threw her arms around Undyne, sobbing violently into her tank top. “I’m s-s-sorry,” she warbled, her words muffled by skin and fabric. Undyne pulled her close, rubbing circles into her back.

“It’s okay. You’re okay.”

“I d-don’t want to b-b-be gone, U-Undyne, but I k-keep hurting people and lying and m-making e-everything worse, I-I’m so s-sorry…”

“It’s gonna be okay.”

“But y-you don’t even kn-know what I’ve done o-or lied to you a-about…”

Undyne let her chin rest on the crown of Alphys’s head. “I’ll forgive you.”

“Undyne… You don’t… Understand. How many bad things I’ve done…”

“It’ll be okay.”

Alphys tightened her grip on Undyne and pressed her face into her shoulder even harder. “No, it w-won’t! I hurt a _lot_ of people.”

“But you didn’t mean to. I _know_ you didn’t mean to.”

“That doesn’t m-matter! I still hurt them, and I still can’t f-fix it,” Alphys said, a shuddering breath leaving her chest. “I don’t know what to d-do.”

Undyne hugged her back a little harder. Every now and then, the echo flowers’ chant met Undyne’s ears again, and she had to restrain herself from grimacing. “Hurting yourself isn’t the answer,” she whispered. Alphys flinched.

“I…I know. I r-really am sorry… I shouldn’t h-have… Even th-thought about that, but… It was the o-only way that I thought I could stop feeling so b-bad…” She sighed. “But I guess that just made things worse, too.”

Undyne felt tears threatening to spill again. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”

“It’s n-not your fault.”

“Yeah, it kind of is. I should have known you were having a bad time, but look where we are now.” She sighed. “Alphys… If you ever feel like that again, will you please promise you’ll talk to me? You shouldn’t have to deal with this by yourself.”

“Okay. I p-promise.”

“Thank you.” Without thinking, Undyne pressed a quick kiss to her forehead, chest tight with too, too much emotion. Alphys was here, and she was _safe_ , and that was all that mattered.

She realized five seconds later what she’d done, though, and her cheeks blazed. “Do you want to go to my house and talk? If that will make you feel better,” she said quickly.

Alphys kept her face pressed into Undyne’s shoulder to hide her own blush. “I… Yeah. I’d l-like that.”

“All right. Then let’s get out of this dump,” she said. Alphys laughed a little, and Undyne felt a much-needed grin break across her face. Alphys disentangled herself from Undyne, sighed, and nodded.

They walked out of the dump in comfortable silence, Undyne’s arm draped across Alphys’s shoulder to hold her close.

She didn’t plan on letting go anytime soon.

**Author's Note:**

> National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1 (800) 273-8255  
> If you ever feel like hurting yourself, please reach out for help. My askbox is always open (fishlizardweeb . tumblr . com).
> 
> Yeah, I couldn't actually let Alphys go through with it... This lizard deserves to be happy, damn it!


End file.
